Immigration and Competitiveness: Responding to Global Challenges in the European Union and United States

Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden

Antonio de Lecea, Principal Advisor for Economic and Financial Affairs, Delegation of the European Union to the United States

Pia Orrenius, Senior Economist, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Demetrios Papademetriou, MPI’s President and convener of the Transatlantic Council on Migration

Immigration is an indispensable piece of any successful strategy to boost economic growth and prosperity. Alongside investments in education and workforce-training systems, research and development, public infrastructure, and thoughtful regulatory policies that reduce barriers to employment, immigration policy can contribute directly to innovation, technological progress, and rising human-capital levels.

How can immigrant-receiving countries use thoughtful, flexible, and responsive immigration policies to boost their economic competitiveness? What can the United States learn from other countries’ approaches to employment-based immigration – particularly those that have embarked on policies to make their immigration systems more nimble and responsive to labor market needs?

This event, which concludes a year of research jointly conducted by the Migration Policy Institute and the European University Institute, will highlight some of the most promising reform proposals on both sides of the Atlantic. Demetrios Papademetriou will present the findings of the project’s comparative research, which draws on MPI’s longstanding experience advising European and North American governments on immigration.

This event is part of the Pilot Projects on Transatlantic Methods for Handling Global Challenges in the European Union and the United States, a project funded by the European Commission. The project is conducted jointly by the Migration Policy Institute and the European University Institute. The views expressed at this event are solely those of the speaker(s) and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

Registration deadline for this event has passed.

Event Co-Sponsor

The project is conducted jointly by the Migration Policy Institute and the European University Institute.

Events Contact

MPI-EUI Project

The MPI-European University Institute research project identified ways in which European and U.S. immigration systems can be substantially improved to address major challenges policymakers confront on both sides of the Atlantic, in the context of the economic turmoil and in the longer term.